Salwa Tareen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Leiden Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Developmental Sociology. Her research explores religion, gender, and the politics of care in urban South Asia. At Leiden, Salwa collaborates on the ERC-funded project Entangled Universals of Transnational Islamic Charity, where she traces genealogies of reciprocity and humanitarianism across the Muslim world.

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Salwa Tareen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Leiden Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Developmental Sociology. Her research explores religion, gender, and the politics of care in urban South Asia. At Leiden, Salwa collaborates on the ERC-funded project Entangled Universals of Transnational Islamic Charity, where she traces genealogies of reciprocity and humanitarianism across the Muslim world. 

Salwa received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Boston University in 2025. Her dissertation, “Of the City and the Soul: Urban Disaster and Dissident Ethics in Karachi,” examines how residents of Pakistan’s largest city utilize charitable giving to address perceived urban disasters​. Drawing upon 21-months of ethnographic fieldwork, the project considers the material and ethical dimensions of giving as a means to care for one another and the city itself.​ Salwa also holds a M.T.S. in religion, ethics, and politics from Harvard University. In addition to her academic work, Salwa is an arts organizer, poet, and essayist.